Big Finish

Day 7 – Heading to Victoria

Dancing until 11 and then up for stretch class made for a short night last night with the time change. But once again I woke up before my alarm, got dressed and headed out. Since I woke up a little early I took the laptop up to the crows’ nest to get caught up. The wind had died down somewhat – it was down to 45 knots or so – but they still had the netting on the pool and the outside doors closed. There were 5 of us for stretch & abs, but Steve was about 10 minutes late.  After class I came back to the cabin where Dave had just woken up. He wasn’t in the mood for breakfast so I went by myself and shared a table with a couple from Pendleton and single lady from Oxnard. I had the yogurt parfait and waffles, which was very enjoyable.

Back to the cabin for some relaxing, and off to boot camp. Neil didn’t show up, so it was just Angie and me. It was fortunate that it was Angie, because she doesn’t push as hard as Steve and I didn’t have a lot left. She was asking me how many kids we had and how old, and made me very happy by saying that I must have been very young when I had them and acting surprised when I told her my age. Then she asked if the man I was with on the cruise was their father, and was stunned when I told her how long we’ve been together. It was kind of sad. While I was at boot camp Dave went to the debarkation talk, where they pretty much told the same jokes as they always do and said the same things they always do. We had a little while before lunch, so we took our customer satisfaction surveys and sat in the ocean bar to fill them out.

We wanted to get to the ice carving demo at 1, so we decided to get a table just for the two of us at lunch. Sometimes when you share a table you end up with people who eat multiple appetizers or entrees (not that there’s anything wrong with that) which can slow you down. It was kind of fun being just the two of us.  But after we’d finished lunch they made a couple of announcements – first, that the heavy seas had slowed us down so much that we wouldn’t get to Victoria in time to have the shore excursions there, and second, that it was too rough for ice carving.  So that was a little disappointing, but it would be bad to have a block of ice fall on a crew member. An interesting thing about Victoria is that the ship still has to stop there and send a tender ashore to clear customs, to comply with the Jones Act. The Jones Act is also why we had to stop in Mexico on the way back from Hawaii.

At 1:30 it was time for the best shore excursion ever, and we didn’t even have to leave this ship! On some of our early cruises we were able to sign up for the bridge tour, where they’d take 30 or so folks up to the bridge and point at all the screens and controls. So in 2009 when we went to Mexico we went to the front desk to sign up for the bridge tour, only to be told that they didn’t do it anymore. On the Hawaii cruise we tried again, and this time they said that they didn’t do it anymore but they now had a full-ship tour that you could pay for that lasted about 3 hours. The price seemed kind of steep and what would you look at for 3 hours anyway, so we didn’t do it. But this trip we’d decided to consider it a shore excursion, so we took 2 of the 12 available spots. At 1:30 we met up in the piano lounge with Sheri, the ship’s marketing manager, and headed up to the bridge. I have made the tour into its own blog entry because it’s very long and detailed.

Once we were back from the tour it was already time to head to the Queen’s lounge for the NeptuneCats. Each cruise you need to find your favorite entertainers, and these were our favorites for sure on this cruise. They played until 5:30, at which point I had an appointment with Steve for my free body composition analysis and sales pitch, and Dave went to walk around the ship. Steve was late as usual, but eventually came by and attached me to the little machine that tells you your hydration level (fine), your base metabolic rate (what’s that? Mine’s a little low) and your fat and lean body mass. Then he drew little circles and x’s and diagrams on a piece of paper all the while talking very fast about lymph nodes and fat cells and your liver and alkalinity, and then he took one magic number and multiplied it by another magic number to tell me how much weight I would lose if I would buy the 3 month supply of super-algae detoxification pills for $308. Since my magic number was just under 4 pounds, it seemed a little steep, so we just looked at each other and said how much we’d enjoyed working out together, and I left the gym without any algae.

Dave got back to the cabin about the same time I did, and we decided that rather than go to the crows’ nest for one last time with Matt (who was very good, but with whom we had not bonded) we’d do our packing. Which we did, carefully filling the big suitcase with the bulky lightweight items to avoid an overweight fee. The packing went quickly and was surprisingly relaxed, partly because we’re getting better at low-stress packing and partly because the room was so big that there was room to lay everything out, and also room for us to get past each other without having to squeeze to one side. It will be hard to go back to the smaller room with only one sink and one shower.

We finished packing just in time to catch a little more music in the ocean bar, then off to dinner. It was only Earl and Olympia at dinner, and she apologized for being crabby the first night. Dinner was really good – delicious lamb chops for me, a double order of chile rellonos for Dave, and a double order of dessert for me. We also drank the second bottle of wine we’d brought, and it was very good. But we’ve decided we probably won’t bring wine again – while our wine from home was better than all but their wildly expensive wines, we think it’s more fun to try new things.

After dinner we went back to the ocean bar and danced a little (we even were the only couple out on the floor during one of the slow dances – how brave we’re getting!), but it was clearing up outside and Dave really, really wanted to go for a walk. I really, really wanted to keep dancing, so we split up. Just at that moment the older lady who’d been my willing “let’s get up and dance” partner last night showed up, so she and I went out on the floor and got the two girls who also love to dance out on the floor, and then a group of Australian women showed up, and the party really got started. More and more people came out on the floor and we danced for about an hour straight. Dave showed up near the end and was there for the 3 encores – as one of the people there pointed out, the band was in a corner, and if we didn’t let them out they couldn’t leave. The last one was Mustang Sally with everybody singing and dancing like crazy, and the band taking turns doing solos, and everybody pretty much giving it everything they had – it was the best. As we were leaving cruise director John wanted to know where we’d all been for the whole cruise, but it just all came together for a really magical end to the evening.

After that we walked around the ship for a while, looking at the stars and cooling off, and then it was bedtime. We were in the first group for disembarkation, so it would be an early breakfast in the Lido (best place for eggs benedict, anyway) and then off for a long wait at the airport. We’re sad that the cruise is over, but it’s not as hard as leaving the Hawaii cruise was.

Tonight’s towel animal: hanging monkey. One of our favorites. Well done, Joe and Olih!